Good ol' BSD vs. GPL

[John]

Yay! Bikeshed!

/getspopcorn

On January 6, 2015 2:43:18 AM CST, Cathal Garvey <cathalgarvey at cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
> > RMS does not want to allow his enemies to use the tools he
> > creates.
>
>Well, no; he wants them to use it as much as they like, as long as they
>
>give back to the commons on which they built their foundations. There's
>
>nothing at all wrong with asking that.
>
>RMS would likely be insulted at the idea that he would forbid essential
>
>freedoms to *anyone*, including the companies he hates.
>
>There's an undercurrent in some patches of this discussion, if I may, 
>that suggests that openness is orthogonal to commercial success; the 
>idea being that GPL is "anti-business" and weaker licenses are 
>"pro-business". I'll just throw in "citation needed" with the reminder 
>that correlation does not imply causation.
>
>Users (more like "Used") buy Windows all the time even though everyone 
>knows it can be had for free. Music lovers continue to pay for music 
>even though it's common knowledge that it can be had with less malware 
>on torrent sites, or simply cribbed from friends. Same for books, same 
>for everything.
>
>Artificial scarcity creates artificial demand, but a natural abundance 
>does not diminish natural demand. And if you want to sell open code, it
>
>had better be GPL, or your competitors will steal all your best ideas 
>and leave you with an inferior product. With GPL, you *invite* your 
>competitors to improve with you, while you both crib one another's work
>
>and get better and more usefully distinct over time.
>
>On 06/01/15 01:28, Jesse B. Crawford wrote:
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>> On 2015-01-05 12:29, odinn wrote:
>>> This led me to ask if maybe there was just a way to release it
>>> into domain (public domain) without the whole licensing system and
>>> multitude of restrictions and competing licensing restrictions
>>> (including Unlicense) coming into play, depending on the project /
>>> projects being considered.  (Again I think we are twirling in
>>> circles here)
>>
>> This isn't unheard of, the main example would be SQLite which is
>> completely public domain to great success. Although it depends on
>> jurisdiction, they explain this licensing arrangement as "Anyone is
>> free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute the
>> original SQLite code, either in source code form or as a compiled
>> binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
>> means," which sounds about as free as it can get to me.
>>
>> I had a discussion with RMS about this not that long ago. In fact,
>the
>> discussion began with the BSD project, which he seems to view
>> primarily as an attempt to undermine the work of the FSF (an opinion
>> that he expresses in some of his public talks as well). Anyway, I
>> think it is apparent from talking to RMS that he feels that it is a
>> goal of GPL to prevent "user-subjugating" software vendors ever
>> obtaining any commercial advantage from GPL-licensed code. The theory
>> of it is a bit like not selling ammunition to KKK members or
>> something, RMS does not want to allow his enemies to use the tools he
>> creates.
>>
>> Of course I don't agree with him in this regard, but that's because I
>> don't feel that closed-source software is intrinsically evil. From
>> RMS's perspective, that closed-source software is fundamentally a
>> violation of the rights of the user, it makes a great deal of sense.
>>
>> I think that even FSF advocates increasingly don't align fully with
>> RMS on this issue, but his ideas have certainly influenced the GPL.
>>
>> jc
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